A web conference typically shares voice data among multiple users. To create a web conference, the users connect their client devices to a conference server (e.g., through the Internet). The conference server typically combines voice data from all of the users into a combined audio feed and shares this combined audio feed with all of the users. Accordingly, users are able to form a collaborative exchange even though the users may be scattered among remote locations.
In conventional approaches to conducting a web conference, a user's computer filters out low amplitude, or low volume, sound, which is throughout this document any component different from the actual user's voice. The result of such filtering is that other users at the web conference do not hear background sound in the vicinity of the user. For example, the user may be conducting the web conference from a location within earshot of traffic noise. As the traffic noise has low volume relative to the user's voice, the user's computer effectively suppresses the traffic noise by removing low-amplitude sound.